Download Divine Intervention? The Influence of Religious

Polit Behav
DOI 10.1007/s11109-012-9211-3
ORIGINAL PAPER
Divine Intervention? The Influence of Religious Value
Communication on U.S. Intervention Policy
Paul A. Djupe • Brian R. Calfano
Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012
Abstract Opinion about U.S. foreign intervention depends on both one’s belief
about how the world works and those cognitively available value conceptions about
how it should work. Consistent with social identity theory, we argue that values can
shape social group boundaries and that these boundaries are analogous to the
position of the U.S. in the world. Thus, the religious values we explore neatly map
onto opinion about whether U.S. intervention should be qualified in its scope and
rationale. In this investigation, we first provide experimental tests of religious value
priming conducted on Christians, Muslims, and Jews. We then assess the degree to
which American Protestant clergy communicate these values. The results of both
investigations support the efficacy of considering the communication of religious
values in shaping public opinion on U.S. foreign intervention.
Keywords Values Priming Religion and politics Foreign policy attitudes Clergy politics Experiments
You’re either with us or against us in the fight against terror. (Bush 2001)
Brotherhood and bigotry are intertwined in all religion. (Allport 1959, p. 1)
U.S. foreign interventions are amenable to a variety of interpretations depending
on one’s beliefs about how the world works. These beliefs can help validate state
action by demonizing an intervention target as ‘‘evil’’. They can also frame
intervention as the product of compromises necessary in achieving cooperation
P. A. Djupe (&)
Department of Political Science, Denison University, Granville, OH 43230, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
B. R. Calfano
Department of Political Science, Missouri State University, 901 S. National Ave., Springfield,
MO 65897, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
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among diverse international actors. While we do not seek to diminish the power of
beliefs in shaping foreign policy views, we focus here on exposure to religious
values that facilitate different views of foreign interventions. We argue that the
baseline for how people view foreign interventions can be shaped by the
superordinate religious values to which they are exposed. The religious values we
explore help define the ingroup and outgroup narrowly or expansively and thus help
to set the analogous bounds for appropriate state action.
What we label ‘‘inclusive values’’ claim that religious organizations should reach
out to new members, define ingroup boundaries expansively, and consider the
interests of outgroup members. Thus, those encountering inclusive values will think
about the interests of those outside the United States while evaluating U.S. foreign
intervention policy. This will tend to lead to opposition of unilateral foreign
interventions based solely on American interests. On the other hand, those
encountering what we term ‘‘exclusive values,’’ which reify narrow group boundaries
to the world by suggesting members consort only with coreligionists, should show
greater support for unilateral, self-interested foreign interventions. Though we use
foreign policy as our test vehicle, there is no reason to think that the same basic logic
does not apply to any number of public policies where group tensions can be
analogized.
We explore value-based effects on U.S. intervention attitudes with data involving
multiple actors. Since we wish to assess communication effects, finding a crosssectional correlation between popular agreement with these values and public support
for foreign interventionism would be insufficient. Therefore, we utilize an experimental design that variably primes inclusive or exclusive religious values prior to
soliciting opinions on six U.S. foreign intervention policies. Different from artificial
lab environments, when encountering the intervention prime our subjects were sitting
in their actual houses of worship that represent a wide variety of U.S. religious
traditions. In our view, the essence of religious leader communication to followers is
exposure to a core value prescribing how people order their lives and collective action
in the world. This communication is most consistently found in sermons. Indeed,
stripped to their core, sermons consist of elevating the importance of a value in the
decision-making process of members. This process of value elevation is the definition
of priming (Iyengar and Kinder 1987; Krosnick and Kinder 1990).
Given their centrality in value priming, we also assess the degree to which clergy
actually communicate these two religious value sets. We find that these values are
not just theoretical constructs, but are communicated to millions of believers on a
regular basis in the U.S. Moreover, the actual distribution of value presentation
supports the pattern of experimental results, showcasing the power of occasional
exposure to exclusive values.
Values to the People—Religious Communities and Clergy
Our argument is that religious elites prime religious values that activate social
identity boundaries that shape citizen attitudes. Given their long-recognized role in
instilling values, religious communities are a sensible place to look to understand
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the source of general notions about how the world ought to function (e.g., Bellah
et al. 1985; Leege and Kellstedt 1993; Leege and Welch 1989; Parsons 1937;
Rokeach 1973; Tocqueville 1994/1840). Houses of worship make explicit
arguments about how the world should be ordered and draw on specific lessons
for how to bring this order to fruition (Djupe and Gilbert 2009; Gilbert 1993;
Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995; Jelen 1992; Leege and Kellstedt 1993; Leege and
Welch 1989; Wald et al. 1988). In this process, clergy and related community
leaders help to shape the values people hold. The values then work to inform how
members might live and reflect those lessons in society.
Remarkably, it was only recently that clergy influence was considered
systematically. Early research was concerned with what clergy thought and did
politically, but was content to assume that clergy communication affects people in
the pews (see, e.g., Campbell and Pettigrew 1959; Djupe and Gilbert 2003; Guth
et al. 1997; Hadden 1969; Quinley 1974; Stark et al. 1971). Recent research,
containing designs with sufficient complexity to test this conventional wisdom, has
tended to undermine it (Leege 1985; Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995). A multi-level
design allowed Djupe and Gilbert (2009) to document why clergy are often found to
have little political effect.
First, as Djupe and Gilbert (2009) argue, community members systematically
misperceive the amount of political cues clergy provide based on the direction of
their attitudes and issue importance. Second, high levels of issue importance lead
members to project their own views onto clergy attitudes (Krosnick 1989; Krosnick
et al. 1993). And, third, disagreement with the clergy leads members to ignore
clergy cue giving in-line with psychology research showing how people develop
defensive motivations in information processing (Chaiken et al. 1996), promoting
confirmation bias (e.g., Munro et al. 2002). These micro-mechanisms for clergy
influence are neatly encapsulated by the finding that clergy have less credibility
when they communicate political rather than religious messages (Djupe and Calfano
2009; Kohut et al. 2000).
These studies point the way to more systematic theorizing about how clergy may
affect congregant opinions regarding the mode and content of communication.
Specifically, effective clergy communication will overcome or avoid congregant
defenses against dissonant political information. It is clear that effective clergy
communication will take an indirect route to influence, which might include agenda
setting, priming, and framing rather than direct persuasion (see, e.g., Scheufele and
Tewksbury 2007). We focus on one such possibility here: Clergy may shape
member politics through the priming of religious values, which may often occur
during sermons and similar elite-led presentations. Message credibility is affected
by cue attributes, including the strength of the message and whether it is pitted
against competing arguments (Chong and Druckman 2008; Sniderman and
Theriault 2004). Religious values sit in the most obvious, credible purview of
clergy—to communicate how people should order their lives, and how religious
communities should orient themselves to the world.1 Thus, the religious values we
1
For instance, a 2007 Gallup poll (Newport 2007) found explicit support that people look for guidance
from their house of worship—23 % attended church ‘‘for spiritual growth and guidance’’ and 20 %
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investigate might reasonably be thought of as strong messages. In addition, since
there are very likely no competing religious elites presenting competing value
messages, it is unlikely that these values are subject to competition and thus the
defenses that congregants may have built toward overtly political messages are
likely avoided.
Religious Values and Group Boundaries
Our conception of religious values follows the classic distinction among religious
organizations of churches and sects first identified by Troeltsch (1931; see also
Niebuhr 1951). Church and sect lie at the end points of a scale marking the degree of
tension between the group and society (Finke and Stark 2005; Johnson 1963), with
churches coincident with society and sects living in tension (Stark and Finke 2000).
Put simply, tension is the engine driving the religious economy, the essential
variable shaping religious growth and decline (Finke and Stark 2005; Stark and
Finke 2000). This suggests that one is highly likely to encounter statements in the
local religious context that vary between assimilation and distinctiveness, barriers
and bridges, or inclusive and exclusive values.
Regarding religious exclusivity, Appleby (2003, pp. 181–182) suggests,
‘‘Enclave builders portray their religion’s truths, ‘rights,’ and responsibilities as
inherently superior to those of their rivals…The strength of a religious community’s
claim to the loyalty of its adherents rests on the community’s ability to present itself
as the exclusive bearer of specific moral and/or material benefits.’’ It is no surprise
then that more exclusive, sect-like religious organizations host much more dense
social networks (Stark and Finke 2000; Stark and Glock 1968; but see Djupe and
Calfano 2012; Djupe and Gilbert 2009). Thus, the presentation of exclusive values
should encourage people to pit their group’s interests against those of a broader
world—the outgroup.
In contrast, religious values relating to inclusion seek openness and communion
with others, including and especially those not already part of the particular
community (Sowle Cahill 1994). The landmark transition in the Catholic Church
known as Vatican II was a way to embrace inclusion and a measure of diversity.
This shift had real implications for church activity—those with an inclusive, postVatican II vision for the church were much more engaged in social outreach and
activism than those with a more exclusive, pre-Vatican II vision (Leege and
Trozzolo 1989/2006**). Thus, we expect that those exposed to inclusive values will
evince more concern for the interests of others beyond their group.
There is little doubt that these values live in tension. Volf, for instance, while
advocating for inclusion, defines sin itself ‘‘as the practice of exclusion’’ (1996,
p. 72) and, in broad brush, whether religious bodies take more inclusive or exclusive
Footnote 1 continued
attended because it ‘‘keeps me grounded/inspired.’’ The remainder suggested they attend ‘‘because it’s my
faith’’ (15 %), ‘‘to worship God’’ (15 %), for ‘‘the fellowship of other believers/the community’’ (12 %),
‘‘believe in God/believe in religion’’ (12 %), and because they were ‘‘brought up that way/a family value/
tradition’’ (12 %), all of which are not incompatible with the value setting potential of churches.
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directions is the essence of ongoing denominational battles, most recently in the
ELCA, Episcopal Church, and Presbyterian Church (USA) over the acceptance of
gay clergy and among Latter-Day Saints regarding immigration. At the same time,
aspects of both inclusive and exclusive values appear to be reflected in the seven
heavenly virtues (Cairns 1996), suggesting that both value sets should be equally
recognizable to religious adherents across a variety of communities.
Drawing on this perspective, we focus on communicated values regarding the
role of religious communities toward society that recognize varying degrees of
intergroup tension—whether the constituted aim is to reach out and be inclusive of
people or to reinforce boundaries with the world and focus inward to the exclusion
of outsiders. Specifically, religious community members hearing exhortations to
hold exclusive values should lead to support of other ingroup projects, such as
unilateral U.S. foreign intervention. Conversely, clergy pushing inclusive values
should lead members to consider the interests of outgroup members such that
qualified, cooperative U.S. foreign interventions become more attractive than
unilateralism. These values are constantly addressed by congregational clergy (as
we shall see), which means that religious communities offer a regular fount of
variably primed values that can either help transcend group divisions or exacerbate
them.
Values and Foreign Policy Opinion
Following Converse’s seminal work (1964), public opinion research has been
concerned with assessing whether various kinds of predispositions interact with
contemporary information to shape opinions. While Converse was concerned with
the degree to which a single dimension—ideology—produced opinion consistency,
subsequent work has produced a multitude of more nuanced approaches. Research
has allowed multiple dimensions of predispositions to operate (e.g., Hurwitz and
Peffley 1987), argued that contemporary information allows dispositions to function
(Zaller 1992; see also Goren 2005), found that predispositions motivate a search for
useful contemporary information (e.g., Brady and Sniderman 1985; Lupia 1994;
Sniderman et al. 1991), and furthered the notion that citizens continually update
their preferences from contemporary information in ways consistent with prior
beliefs (e.g., Fiske and Taylor 1984; Lodge et al. 1989; Taber and Lodge 2006).
Work on American foreign policy opinion, including topics related to interventionism, has, of course, adopted this occupation with the role of predispositions.
Long-term stability in foreign policy opinions can be located in two sources. First,
Hurwitz and Peffley (1987) find that a set of general ideas about foreign policy
guide opinion on specific instances (see also Barker et al. 2008). A number of
studies have found opinion solidified around a few poles that define what elites and
the public see as laudable goals in the national interest (e.g., Wittkopf 1986).
Though public opinion on American foreign policy has contained a desire for policy
consensus (Holmes 1985; Mueller 1973), at least until the Vietnam era (Hinckley
1988; Mandelbaum and Schneider 1979; Modigliani 1972), the locus of this
consensus has fluctuated between isolationist and interventionist poles, with
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intervention divided between unilateral and multilateral distinctions (Kull and
Destler 1999; Mandelbaum and Schneider 1979; Page and Shapiro 1992; Todorov
and Mandisodsa 2004).
Zaller (1991, 1992) argues forcefully against claims of attitudinal consistency
through his theory of the survey response (see also Zaller and Feldman 1992), in
which contemporary information generates top of the head, rather than reflective,
responses. However, in a series of experiments, Herrmann et al. (1999) show that
despite being reliant on contemporary information in ways that undermine
ideological consistency, people adapt their policy preferences in sensible, consistent
ways. The balance of the literature, therefore, has found that predispositions are
important in shaping specific attitudes, but Zaller’s top of the head characterization
of public opinion is important because it suggests that predispositional effects on
policy preferences can be manipulated by elites in their particular domains.
Indeed, while values are foundational determinants of individual preferences,
values are themselves susceptible to manipulation. Experimental work has found a
number of instances of value instability. Katz and Haas (1988) find that values are
subject to priming, which can then affect policy stances. In addition, exposure to
conflicting values may lead to ambivalence (e.g., Alvarez and Brehm 1995; Nelson
et al. 1997). Moreover, as noted, Zaller (1992) finds that value implementation
depends on variable information stocks. Hence, there is substantial evidence that
value hierarchies and their effect on attitudes are quite mutable, even if they do not
seem to change much over time in the population (Jennings and Niemi 1968),
especially among the sophisticated (Jacoby 2006).
The Bounds of Conflict
The intersection between group conflict and intervention decisions is not new in the
study of international relations (see Regan 2002 for a review of this literature). It is
not hard to see why the linkage between groups, identity formation, and conflict is so
appealing. In social identity theories, even minimal, randomly assigned amounts of
tension are sufficient to orient attitudes and behaviors toward group-centric patterns
that increase positive ingroup evaluations, while decreasing positive evaluations for
outgroup members (Sherif et al. 1961; Tajfel 1970; Tajfel and Turner 1986; see
Huddy 2001 and Monroe et al. 2000 for reviews). Though the lack of competition for
resources or conflict can still sustain identity construction even in the most sterile of
circumstances (e.g., Hogg and Abrams 1988), other branches of social identity theory
see identity rooted in real group conflict, though only the perception of competition is
sufficient to alter identities (Taylor and Moghaddam 1994). As one of the early
proponents of real group conflict theory, Sherif (1967) suggested that only the
generation of superordinate goals would induce cooperation and reduce intergroup
tension. Gaertner and Dovidio (2000) expand Sherif’s observation beyond goal
seeking to assert the power of shared, broader group identities to help overcome
intergroup tension. Building on this perspective, Transue (2007) found that priming a
superordinate, national identity allows whites to overcome racial particularism in
their policy views (see also Gibson and Gouws 2002).
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We expand this line of thinking about what may induce or overcome group
conflict to include value considerations. As statements of how the world should be
ordered, religious values may include the definition of the interests to consider
before taking action. For instance, should people act in the interests of the individual
or community, and, if the latter, which community? Presented in this way, value
considerations should have the power to help erase or establish group boundaries
and determine for whose benefit a public policy should be enacted.
Two qualifications are in order. First, the priming effects may interact with or be
subsumed by acceptance of the message (see Transue 2007). Fortunately our design
allows us to assess whether adoption of the religious values we employ bears on
their attitudes. Second, the extent of the value priming effects should depend on the
frequency with which people are exposed to them. Priming frequently received
criteria would be unlikely to induce a shift in attitudes since the attitudes may
already reflect consideration of those criteria. As we shall see, inclusive values are
vastly more frequently communicated than exclusive values. Therefore, we expect
that priming only exclusive values will result in a shift in attitudes compared to the
control.
Study One: Religious Value Priming and Intervention Preferences
The goal of our sample construction for our experiment was to include an enormous
range of American religion. To ensure a wide diversity of adult religious community
members, we sent mail and e-mail invitations to all local religious bodies in five
randomly selected zip codes in both metropolitan Pittsburgh and northern New
Jersey.2 Following several iterations of scheduling and negotiations over project
terms, the experimental surveys were distributed in houses of worship in evangelical
Protestant, mainline Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim congregations in these geographic areas during the spring and summer of 2008. In all, one mainline Protestant
congregation (Methodist), two evangelical congregations (non-denominational), two
Jewish congregations (Reform), two Mosques and one Islamic Center (all predominantly Sunni) agreed to participate on the condition that the names of the houses of
worship are kept confidential.3 We also conducted this experiment in two Catholic
parishes. However, the completion rate of the relevant dependent variable items by
Catholic subjects was too low for inclusion here.
In all, 734 surveys were returned across the nine houses of worship participating
in the experiment. As would be expected, not all surveys were returned with usable
data for the dependent variables. Using only those surveys that contained
information for our dependent variables drops our N to 525, which contains usable
responses from 87 evangelical Protestants, 135 mainline Protestants, 151 Muslims,
and 152 Jews. There is no evidence that experimental responses were lost
systematically across the traditions. Because the sample is not reflective of each
group’s size in the population, we examine treatment effects separately by religious
2
These areas were selected because of proximity to the authors.
3
This was also a stated condition of the Institutional Review Board’s permission to sanction this project.
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tradition. Though Jews and Muslims constitute small portions of the contemporary
electorate relative to Christians, their inclusion helps to provide a generalizable test
of value influence that better reflects the true diversity of American religion. A test
with this kind of diversity has, heretofore, not existed in the literature since the
numbers of Jews and Muslims are minimal in even large national probability
samples.
Of course, we cannot and do not claim that the subjects participating in our
experiment are perfectly representative of their respective religious traditions.
However, our choice of samples goes far in addressing the concern political
scientists have with reliance on student convenience samples (Sears 1986). While
executing survey-embedded experiments in representative samples is ideal, given
that subjects are likely to respond to stimuli in roughly the same way as average
Americans (especially once appropriate controls are applied, see Lucas 2003), we
have general confidence that the results found have adequate external validity.
Moreover, we conducted our experiment in houses of worship—the actual milieu of
clergy-led, religious value socialization. If simple survey experimental effects can
be instigated while participants are surrounded by powerful reminders of what their
religious community stands for, then actual communication from religious elites
using value priming probably may be considered more effectual. Lastly, since we
are not concerned with generating point estimates of religious value effects, but,
instead, with knowing if value presentations instigate some attitudinal response (see
Kam et al. 2007), the complications inherent in not using a perfectly representative
sample of religious communities are lessened.
Treatments
We wished to simulate the effect of a clergyperson including either inclusive or
exclusive values in a sermon (though this procedure mimics any communicative
event). To do so, we stripped a sermon down to its most minimal feature—among
other things, sermons attempt to provide congregants with or remind them about
values to guide decision making, which we see as akin to priming. Thus, our 1 9 3
experimental design randomly assigned whether subjects were (1) primed with
inclusive religious values prior to the intervention policy questions, (2) primed with
exclusive values, or (3) whether subjects received the value questions after the
intervention questions.
The values were operationalized through batteries of two questions per type.4
The exclusive values were measured by the following two statements:
•
In trying to be a good Christian, it is important to shop as much as possible at
stores owned by other Christians.
4
These items load heavily on two factors split along the expected inclusive/exclusive lines. There are no
other items in use that tap these concepts. We draw heavily on Finke and Stark (2005) for broad
conceptual development and include an economic item in the exclusive battery given a growing literature
on the ingroup reinforcing effects of participation in the Christian economy (e.g., Park and Baker 2007;
Wuthnow 1998).
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•
In trying to be a good Christian, it is important to keep company with other
Christians.
The inclusive value set included these two statements:
•
•
In trying to be a good Christian, it is important to ‘‘love the stranger as
yourself.’’
In trying to be a good Christian, it is important to invite others to church even if
the church begins to change as a result.
We asked if the subjects agreed or disagreed with the statements, though our goal
in asking about their agreement was merely to bring a set of values to subjects’
attention consistent with the notion of priming. We also made the wording religious
tradition specific so that Jews were given statements starting with, ‘‘In trying to be a
good Jew…’’ Muslims were given statements beginning, ‘‘In trying to be a good
Muslim…’’
The distribution of agreement (higher on the Y axis) with each value question
across the four religious traditions represented in the sample is available in Fig. 1.
There is very little variation in agreement with each value across traditions (all
ANOVA tests are insignificant and no t-tests of individual pairs are significant). All
of them average ‘‘agree’’ with each statement (rounding up to 3). We have no reason
to believe that participants were inattentive and instead suggest that the relatively
high agreement rates indicate the relative ease of priming these values for
congregation members.
Fig. 1 Mean agreement with inclusive and exclusive religious values by religious tradition (with 95 %
confidence interval caps)
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Dependent Variable Index
Each of the six variables that compose our index deals with a particular disposition
regarding U.S. intervention in the affairs of other entities, be they states or terror
groups, and the extent of external coordination with the United States (see the
Appendix for the full list). We selected policy statements that assess support for
interventionism or isolationism and whether the intervention should be coordinated
or unilateral. Thus, each policy statement contains what we label either ‘‘unilateral’’
or ‘‘qualified’’ interventionism (see Hilpold 2001; Pugh 1996). Distinguishing
interventionism in this manner is helpful in assessing the role that religious values
play in shaping dispositions in a broader policy space; much past work on religious
effects on foreign policy has focused more narrowly, such as on the Bush Doctrine
(Guth 2009) and on support for Israel (Mayer 2004; Guth et al. 1996). The index
formed from the six variables capturing a wide range of intervention forms
(a = .59), were coded such that a positive number signifies support for unqualified
US interventions—a more hawkish stance.
Scores for the dependent variables are based on responses to two 0–10 scales that
asked subjects to list the number of arguments in favor and arguments opposed to
each dependent variable statement. This approach reflects aspects of the indicators
used in ambivalence research (see Thompson et al. 1995; Gainous 2008), and
addresses Cacioppo et al. (1997) concern that positive and negative attitudinal poles
may move independently and should be measured to allow for such movement. This
well-tested measurement strategy allows us to capture the intrinsic cognitive
complexity of political concepts to which subjects may have both affirming and
negative responses. Reflecting Eagly et al. (1994) argument that closed ended
response scales are inadequate for effectively capturing attitude responses, subjects
were free to create the affirming and opposing arguments on their own. They were
asked only to enter the numerical count of the affirming and opposing arguments
they could think of in each of two boxes on the survey sheet (which were designated
‘‘arguments in favor?’’ and ‘‘arguments opposed?’’ respectively). Since we are only
interested in the relative argument conflict that subjects have with the intervention
statements, we do not employ an actual ambivalence measure here. Instead, our
dependent variables are constructed as the numerical difference between the two
argument scales for each intervention statement—subtracting the number of
arguments opposed from the number of arguments in favor, which mirrors the way
Crites et al. (1994, p. 633) calculated their ‘‘thought-listing’’ measure (see also the
argument repertoire approach of Price et al. 2002). This creates a variable range of
-10 to 10 in theory (-7 to 8 in these data), where positive values reflect greater
favoritism for a given policy.
Despite strong references for this style of question construction, there is the
possibility that such a cognitively intensive exercise may induce variance from the
attitudes respondents would provide if their intuition were the guide.5 Wilson and
colleagues have found that it is ‘‘difficult for people to know themselves’’ (Wilson
and Dunn 2004, p. 493) and it is common for attempts to encourage introspection
5
We thank an anonymous reviewer for raising this possibility.
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and explain why people hold attitudes to induce weakened correlations between
attitudes and behaviors (e.g., Wilson et al. 1989). Without explicit evidence, it is
difficult to know the extent to which our measurement strategy suffers from this
problem since it does not explicitly ask participants to explain themselves but
instead to rate the extent of the arguments they have in favor and opposition; it does
not go as far as to ask respondents to list their arguments. Still, it is an important
counter argument that future research should take up, especially given the increase
in ambivalence research that uses variants of this measurement strategy.
Based on our expectation that primed exclusive values lead subjects to emphasize
in-group/out-group differences, we take it as evidence that these group differences are
mapped onto U.S. intervention policy if exclusive values lead to greater support of
unqualified U.S. interventionism—a significant, positive effect. We expect these
effects to exist across the four religious communities represented in our sample, each
of which has a particular baseline public opinion in regard to the general question of
interventionism. Based on national opinion surveys, evangelical Protestants have been
found to be the most supportive of unilateral U.S. interventionism, American Muslims
the least. Mainline Protestants and American Jews fall somewhere between these
poles, with mainliners generally more supportive than Jews (Calfano et al. 2008; Guth
2009; Mayer 2004). Those findings are supported here—sample evangelicals have the
highest support for US interventionism (and significantly different from the rest),
while sample Muslims are the least supportive (though not significantly different from
Mainliners or Jews).
Results: Religious Value Effects on U.S. Interventionism
Because the sample of houses of worship is not representative, nor random, we
estimate models for the foreign policy attitudes index within each of the four
religious traditions represented in the sample. Thus, we estimate four models
containing the two experimental conditions, agreement with the value questions,
and the following controls: frequency of attendance at religious services, political
ideology, and sex.6 The OLS regression results are presented in Table 1.
The results are simple to describe. As expected, exposure to exclusive values
exerts a positive, significant effect, shifting foreign policy attitudes more than 3
points for all and nearly 5 points in the case of evangelicals in favor of unqualified
US foreign interventions. The results are consistent and clear—priming exclusive
values reduces considerations about the interests of the outgroup, which in this case
are those outside the United States. In only one case does inclusive value priming
shift attitudes from the control. Sample Muslims exposed to inclusive values
become more supportive of unqualified U.S. interventions. As an embattled
minority, it makes sense that inclusive value exposure would break down barriers
with the U.S. government (as their outgroup).
6
We also elected to include these controls to address any concern that the random assignment
mechanism may have been less effective than in a lab setting. We created interaction terms between the
controls and stimuli and found no significant effects.
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Table 1 OLS estimates of value priming and value adoption on foreign policy attitudes index
Mainline
protestants
b*
(se)
Inclusive
value
priming
.70
(.57)
Exclusive
value
priming
3.69
(.86)
Inclusive
value
agreement
-.20
Exclusive
value
agreement
Religious
attendance
Sex
Political
ideology
Evangelical
protestants
p
b*
(se)
Muslims
p
b*
Jews
(se)
p
b*
(se)
.90
(.30)
***
-.01
(.23)
3.42
(.30)
***
3.11
(.23)
.48
(.52)
4.77
(.56)
(.32)
.06
(.28)
.02
(.18)
-.01
(.12)
.24
(.32)
.38
(.31)
.06
(.16)
.20
(.12)
.30
(.16)
.02
(.16)
.07
(.12)
-.04
(.06)
-.74
(.41)
*
.57
(.28)
.02
(.18)
.80
(.21)
***
.01
(.10)
.01
(.08)
-2.94
(1.48)
**
-1.39
(.84)
-.42
(.61)
-.40
(.48)
.54
(.25)
1.54
***
*
**
***
**
Constant
-2.28
Model
statistics
N = 135
N = 87
N = 151
*
N = 152
Adj R2 = .18
Adj R2 = .48
Adj R2 = .49
Adj R2 = .56
RMSE = 2.67
RMSE = 1.87
RMSE = 1.50
RMSE = 1.07
p
***
*** p \ .01, ** p \ .05, * p \ .10 (two-tailed tests)
We also estimated the effect of value adoption. In no model did agreement with
inclusive or exclusive values affect foreign policy attitudes. Only the signs for
exclusive value agreement are consistently in the expected direction, though still
insignificant. However, it is possible that participants need to be reminded about
their values and only then do participants link them to their attitudes. That is, there
may be an interaction between value priming and agreement. We estimated a
series of models for inclusive and exclusive values individually compared to the
control condition among the four religious traditions, interacting value agreement
and priming (along with the same controls as in Table 1). In 7 of the 8 models,
the interaction was insignificant (not shown). In only one was the interaction
significant—inclusive value priming and agreement among evangelicals. That
interaction, depicted in Fig. 2, shows that those primed (black line) who disagree
with inclusive values (left side) show separation from those not primed (gray line)—
they hold more conservative foreign intervention attitudes. Among sample
evangelicals, the effects are limited to only 11 % of the sample, which highlights
how restricted these effects are. That is, foreign intervention attitudes are moving
here because of the elevation of a values criterion and not because they have
internalized the value.
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Fig. 2 Estimated foreign policy attitudes driven by the interaction of inclusive value priming and
agreement (90 % confidence intervals)
We theorized that the communication and elevation of religious values tapping
in-group/outgroup distinctions would affect policy attitudes among religious
publics. Our results show that primed values otherwise disconnected from politics
can influence the direction of support for policy measures. Given the cognitive
distance between these religious values and U.S. intervention policy, participants
clearly map the value’s logic onto international policy considerations as social
identity theory would predict—exclusive values lead to promoting the interests of
the ingroup. In this case, the primed exclusive values consistently move subject
policy arguments in the direction of favoring U.S. latitude in pursuing foreign
interventions, an effect consistent with favoring the ingroup.
Inclusive value priming is indistinguishable from the control, which could be the
result of several possibilities: the treatment is weak, people do not respond to calls
to lower ingroup boundaries, and/or their attitudes already reflect exposure to
inclusive values. Though we cannot rule out the former two, we can examine
evidence supportive of the latter argument.
Study Two: The Religious Value Presentation of Clergy and its Effects
The strong, consistent effects of religious value priming demonstrated above are
meaningful only insofar as these values are primed in the real world. Fortunately,
there are data to assess just how frequently they are. Thus, we now draw on data
from the most recent incarnation of the Cooperative Clergy Study, which was
coordinated by Corwin Smidt at Calvin College (see also Smidt 2004). A group of
scholars coordinated surveys of clergy covering a wide spectrum of Protestant
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Fig. 3 The frequency of addressing inclusive and exclusive religious values by clergy in nine protestant
denominations. Note Each is coded 4 = very often, 3 = often, 2 = seldom, and 1 = never. ‘‘Neighbor’’
refers to ‘‘In trying to be a good Christian’’, it is important to ‘‘love the stranger as yourself.’’ ‘‘Invite’’
refers to, ‘‘In trying to be a good Christian, it is important to invite others to church even if the church
begins to change as a result.’’ ‘‘Shop’’ refers to ‘‘In trying to be a good Christian, it is important to shop as
much as possible at stores owned by other Christians.’’ ‘‘Associate’’ refers to, ‘‘In trying to be a good
Christian, it is important to keep company with other Christians.’’
denominations.7 We included four questions asking how often clergy presented four
specific value statements using the following language, ‘‘How often do you preach
on the following values in your sermons?’’ The value statements used the same
wording as that listed above in study 1, two for each the inclusive and exclusive
value sets, and each question coded very often (=4), often, seldom, or never (=1).
Figure 3 shows the means by denomination of the four value presentation
questions asked in the survey—two each for inclusive and exclusive values using
the same wording as in our experiment described above. The solid color bars are
inclusive values, while the dashed bars represent the means for exclusive values.
From the figure, it is evident that all denominational clergy report presenting
inclusive values at high rates, with most approaching ‘‘very often’’ (except for
Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod clergy). Expressions of exclusive values are
relatively rare, though there is some variation. Exclusive value presentations are
more common among evangelical Assemblies of God and Southern Baptist Church
ministers by a factor of two (approaching ‘‘seldom’’) over most other denominations. United Methodist clergy occupy a middle ground, while the other
denominations average something close to ‘‘never’’ with regard to their exclusive
value presentations.
7
The denominations surveyed (the primary sponsor for each denomination is in parentheses followed by
the final n and the response rate) included the Assemblies of God (John C. Green, n = 208, response
rate(rr) = 21.1), Christian Reformed Church (Corwin Smidt, n = 370, rr = 53.3), Disciples of Christ
(Christopher Devine, n = 335, rr = 34.9), Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (Laura Olson;
n = 272, rr = 34.1), Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (Jeff Walz and Steve Montreal; n = 359,
rr = 41.7), Reformed Church of America (Corwin Smidt, 312, rr = 50.9), Southern Baptist Church
(James Guth, n = 248, rr = 25.4), United Methodist Church (John C. Green, n = 282, rr = 28.7), and
the Mennonites (Kyle Kopko, n = 520, rr = 53.6).
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The degree of consistency in the value presentations is impressive, showing only
marginal variation across denominations that otherwise vary quite widely in their
theological commitments (Guth et al. 1997). We should also note that while one
would expect that clergy would choose one value to highlight at one point in time,
the two measures are actually positively correlated (r = .173, p = .00, n = 2800).8
More frequent inclusive value presentations are positively related to more frequent
presentations of exclusive ones. This serves to confirm, to an extent, the twin goals
of religious organizations—the evidently more important goal of recruiting new
members (inclusive) while maintaining social and moral boundaries (exclusive)
(Stark and Finke 2000). The results only reflect a swath of Protestant denominations, but are suggestive of what the patterns of value presentation might look like
across the remainder of American religion, especially given the decline of religious
particularism and the formation of two religious camps in the United States
(Wuthnow 1988).
Discussion
Clergy promote inclusive values most often and the estimated effect of priming
inclusive values is equivalent with the non-primed condition. Only in the case of
exclusive value priming do attitudes shift off the baseline. While this pattern is open
to multiple interpretations, we argue that the experimental results simply affirm the
observational results. If congregants are actually hearing inclusive values regularly,
then their attitudes already reflect that, and priming the quotidian should have little
effect. It is only priming irregularly heard exclusive values that produces attitudinal
movement in the experiment.
These findings are notable because the literature has largely overlooked
operationalizing religion’s politically salient values in determining policy attitude
formation (though see similarly oriented work by Leege and Kellstedt 1993; Leege
and Welch 1989; Mockabee et al. 2007). Of the dozens of studies done with the
American National Election Studies (ANES) since 1992—the last time the religion
measures were significantly updated—none include an operationalization of
religious values. As Leege and Kellstedt note, the ANES measures are simply not
suitable for this purpose (1993, p. 220). Instead the ANES measures have examined
‘‘vertical’’ religious links (i.e., with God), instead of emphasizing the far more
politically salient ‘‘horizontal’’ links (i.e., with other humans) that religious
organizations confront and help establish (Leege and Welch 1989). Hence, based on
our findings, more research emphasizing this values-based, ‘‘horizontal’’ linkage of
religion and society is long overdue.
The focus on values also helps us make sense of clergy political influence. Most
studies have found very little influence to exist because, as Djupe and Gilbert (2009)
argue, members erect defenses to political messages from clergy. This means that
8
Inclusive and exclusive value presentations are significantly and positively correlated with each other
within each denomination as well, all at least at the .05 level with the exception of the CRC, in which
r = .09 and p = .09.
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messages evading those defenses might persuade members to adopt a new
disposition to public policy more consistent with the clergy’s expectations. The
religious values we explore appear to be one operative way to avoid those defenses
and shape public policy views (for other avenues of clergy influence, see Djupe and
Calfano 2009; Djupe and Gwiasda 2010).
Our work should be noted as a significant shift in the study of religion and
politics, where scholars have hesitated in emphasizing communication within
religious communities (but see Djupe and Gilbert 2003, 2009; Smith 2008). In the
dynamic view of religious influence presented here, policy attitudes will vary as
religious leaders and members explore the role of their houses of worship in a world
driven by the religious economy and the state of the world. An emphasis on
communicated values in houses of worship provides a plausible mechanism for how
opinions of religious people change, which has been lacking in existing theories of
religious influence. There is little doubt, then, that religious communities can arrive
at attitudes and behaviors that may differ considerably from brethren wearing the
same religious label both across town and around the world (Djupe and Gilbert
2009; Gilbert 1993; Jelen 1992; Roozen et al. 1984; Wald et al. 1988).
Conclusion
Our contention is that value considerations may affect the degree of tension with
society a group experiences, affecting the definitional width of in and outgroups.
This tension, in turn, has effects on how people think about public policy in line
with social identity theory. Inclusive values are posited to lead to an expansive
consideration of the ingroup, which was analogized to apply to cooperative U.S.
interventions. On the other hand, exclusive values emphasize narrow group
boundaries and lead to support for unilateral, self-interested foreign interventions.
There is no reason to think that the same basic logic does not apply to any number of
public policies where group tensions can be analogized, such as immigration, gay
rights, and the politics of race.
Equally important to our story is that the exclusive values we examine have
consistent communication effects and that they are centered in associations. Testing
whether the hierarchy of these values is stable among members of houses of worship
across religious communities requires a suitable temporal research design. But it is
clear from our results that religious value hierarchies are malleable and subject to
priming. And the effects of our value priming experiment were consistent across a
wide range of religious traditions.
While religious communities appear to prioritize outreach (inclusion), they also
may attempt to maintain current membership levels by emphasizing boundaries with
the world (exclusion). It is these rare, defensive moves to emphasize difference that
can have the most potent effects on individual attitudes. This may be a stable result,
but we believe it simply raises the question of the conditions under which religious
values may exert themselves, with a focus on the nature of the baseline, the policy
area, and the composition of the communication space.
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Coding Appendix
Experimental Data
US foreign intervention index Averages the difference in the number of positive and
negative arguments (from 0 to 10) given regarding six statements: ‘‘The U.S. should
intervene in the affairs of foreign states to prevent genocide;’’ ‘‘The U.S. is justified
in waging a pre-emptive strike against states it believes pose a threat to its national
security;’’ ‘‘The U.S. should intervene in the affairs of foreign states only if it has
the support of the United Nations;’’ ‘‘The U.S. should use its influence and resources
to shape the political environments of other nations;’’ ‘‘The U.S. should intervene in
the affairs of foreign states to protect its own economic and political interests;’’
‘‘The United States is justified in warring against states and terror groups espousing
radical Islamic ideology.’’ The index runs in actuality from -7.3 to 8.3 (in theory
from -10 to ?10), in which a positive number suggests favor for unqualified US
interventions.
Attendance ‘‘Aside from weddings or funerals, I typically attend church:’’
1 = once a week or more, 2 = once or twice a month, 3 = about once a month,
4 = several times a year, 5 = rarely, if ever.
Ideology ‘‘Now, thinking of your general political views, which of these labels
best describes you?’’ 1 = strongly liberal, 2 = liberal, 3 = moderate, 4 = conservative, 5 = strongly conservative.
Sex 1 = female, 2 = male.
Acknowledgements We wish to thank Phaik See Lim, Kris Kanthak, and Cathy Johnson for their
assistance with this project, and David Barker, Jeff Kurtz, Dave Peterson, David Woodyard, and Ted
Jelen for helpful suggestions along the way. We also thank the editors and the three anonymous reviewers
for a very productive review process.
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